School uniforms: Yet another time-wasting 'issue' for school board

Never mind that the Lake County School District spent countless hours in 2012 talking about whether to require students to wear uniforms to class.

Never mind that hundreds of parents turned out to town hall-type meetings and special sessions in which children modeled various uniform proposals. Never mind that the board voted not to require them.

School Board members last week toyed with the idea of doing it all again. Thank you, Chairman Debbie Stivender for bringing up yet another waste-of-time "issue."

Lake County, are you tired yet? Tired of watching School Board members spend months discussing ideas whose main points could be canvassed in five minutes by two kindergartners?

What a wearisome chore it is to watch the members of this board focus repeatedly on issues that have nothing to do with improving student performance. It's as if they desperately must find something to divert the attention of the public from the only thing that matters: how best to give students a meaningful eduction.

Still, this business of recycling bad ideas hits a new low.

Stivender suggested that "college and career-ready dress" could be considered under the project being funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation called Engage LCS. The point of that project is to help the district stop spending money on irrelevant nonsense and start spending it on educating students.

Did no one on the board inherit the irony gene? Do they not realize that such a proposal goes to the heart of what Engage is working to eliminate, not increase?

Rosanne Brandeburg did. She immediately said no — in several escalating tones of voice. In the end, board members didn't vote. They simply let this non-issue lay there like stinky road kill on the double yellow line.

It's probably a good thing that the district didn't take up the uniform issue because board members are going to be really, really busy this summer in federal court defending their petty little rules about which clubs get to form at the various schools. That's because they got sued last week — again — over their shortsighted, misguided club policies that have nothing to do with education, but very efficiently suck up time and taxpayer money.

That fuss began last year when the board worked itself into a tizzy over middle-school students asking to start a gay-straight club. A timid school principal said no to the club. The board could simply have overruled her, and that would have been the end of it.

But, no. Here's a chance to create controversy! Keep those dim-witted residents from thinking about the sorry education their kids are getting! So board members spent months overhauling their policy on what kinds of clubs could meet in middle and high schools, painfully proving that they can focus when it comes to pointless exercises.

It seemed that the goal was to keep that evil gay-straight club, whose purpose was to teach anti-bullying, from meeting in the hallowed halls of middle schools. The American Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of the club, and that suit is continuing in federal court in Ocala, racking up plenty of lawyer-hours.

Last week, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, backed by the conservative Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, filed yet another federal lawsuit against the district, saying the district is curtaining their right to free speech and discriminating against them because of their religion.

Club members at Mount Dora High are forbidden to advertise their meetings on the school's marquee, place fliers in the classroom where they meet and announce meetings on the school's public address system, the lawsuit states.

Oh, for crying out loud. This is so ridiculous. Schools are supposed to be places where all sorts of ideas, including unpopular ones, are vetted and considered — under the guidance of a teacher. But thanks to weak School Board members, taxpayers get to pay for injudicious policies with money that should be going into educating students.

School board members could stop this merry-go-round if they wanted.

Both the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Gay-Straight Alliance are fine organizations advised by teachers whose guidance should be trusted. They should have the right to meet and to let other students know of their meetings and purpose. The school district should be encouraging extracurricular groups that enrich student life, not creating petty little rules that get it sued from all sides of the political spectrum.

This is just another non-issue taking up more time and money. Board members should fix it now and move on.

Lritchie@tribune.com. Lauren invites you to send her a friend request on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/laurenonlake.